Bedtime Story
by Silent Knight I
Summary: *Complete one-chapter mini-fic* An innocent bedtime story predicts a series of events many years before they happen.


Hi there,  
As an aside from 'Monsters Within' I thought I'd write this little one-chapter story. It was an idea that came to me in the *cough* shower. It's short, sweet and a bit pointless but oh well, enjoy!  
  
***  
  
"Bedtime Story"  
by Silent Knight  
  
Disclaimer: Based entirely on 'Invader ZIM'. I own all characters appearing here except Zim, of course. This fic makes no sense unless you're very familiar with the plot of the show.  
  
***  
  
On Smeet Development Planet 1369, there was a dark room in which the growing smeets were given their daily nutrients. Feeding in the more traditional way - through the mouth - had been all well and good in the past, but in modern society it was a proven fact that feeding by nutrilizer was more efficient and produced stronger, healthier smeets.  
  
The room was very dark so that the smeets would feel encouraged to close their eyes and relax while the nutrilizer worked. Each smeet was assigned to a small compartment, comfortably padded, in which they were to curl up and wait out the period of their feeding. These compartments were stacked up on each other like bricks, and they ran around three walls of the room. The fourth wall contained the only door out of there, and the controls for the nutrilizer.  
  
On one particular evening, it was the job of the worker named Paloe to see that the smeets received their daily nourishment. A relatively tall, green-eyed Irken, she knew she was privileged to have such a crucial job, and as such she had become rather paranoid about doing it well.  
  
That evening, she ushered into the room about thirty smeets no higher than her knee. They giggled to each other, some of them crawling around on spider legs to show off to their peers. All of them were developing nicely; they were sprouting like weeds, were quite strong and were babbling away almost fluently in their native tongue.  
  
"All right, all right!" Paloe shouted, "all of you select a compartment and settle down."  
  
There was a buzz of scurrying feet and tapping spider legs as the smeets scrambled to get the "good" cubicles. Those on the top rows filled up first, the agile creatures scaling up with ease. Then the rows began to fill downwards, ending with groans from those who had no choice but to stay at the bottom.  
  
One of the smeets who had been forced to take a compartment on ground-level was noticeably shorter than all the others. He had spidery limbs and looked fragile enough to snap. But he was also quite cute, with huge ruby eyes and pint-sized antennae. On making his way to his compartment he was kicked a few times, whether by accident or not he didn't know.  
  
When all the smeets were wholly within their individual sections, Paloe turned to the nutrilizer controls. Her gloved fingers had just settled on the console when she heard a squeaky voice behind her piping up over the whispered conversations of the smeets. She turned and narrowed one eye at the perpetrator, the littlest Irken, who was waving both hands in the air to get her attention.  
  
"What is it, Zim?"  
  
The diminutive Irken smeet named Zim stuck his head out a little way. "I'm not hungry."  
  
"That's not the point," Paloe replied with impatience. "You are here to receive your daily ration of nutrients. Whether or not you feel you require those nutrients is not our concern here. You do require them, you're just too young and stupid to know it."  
  
"But I'm not..."  
  
"What's wrong, Zim?" a shrill female voice cooed from one of the upper levels. "Is the little weenie too scared to get feeded?"  
  
That caused a ripple of laughter to run through all levels. Zim squeezed his hands into tiny fists and glared up, trying to spot the troublemaker. To his dismay, several more insults were thrown down to him. Confused and upset, he didn't know how to react.  
  
Paloe stomped one foot on the ground loudly to get attention, and the room silenced.  
  
"Now listen, you brats! I'm just here to do my job. If you want to poke fun at your little weenie friend, you'll have to do it later. All of you lie on your stomachs, go on."  
  
To the lady's great distress, the Irken children began to wail in protest, rocking in their cubicles. Some of them just cried, some of them became hysterical; but all of them seemed much too unsettled for nutrilizing. Annoyed, Paloe refrained from an angry outburst and decided instead to resort to Plan B.  
  
"Okay, fine. How about I tell a story? You all like stories, right?"  
  
"STORY, STORY!" squealed the Irken kids, bouncing around. Only Zim remained quiet, though he looked sad.  
  
Paloe leaned against the closed door and folded her arms. "All right, this can't take too long. Let's see, do you want to hear the one about the Tallests' brave battle against the mutant worm people? Or the one about the Tallests' inspirational techniques of war? Or maybe the one about the Tallests' unending benevolence to the tall and the clever?"  
  
There was a bored silence. Then a little voice trilled, "Let's tell our own story!" This was met with a chorus of approval.  
  
Paloe sighed. "Okay, I'll get it started. Once upon a time there was an Irken." Her eyes half-closed in irritation.  
  
"AND HE WAS REALLY SHORT!" cried one voice.  
  
Like it was the funniest joke in the universe, the smeets fell into a frenzy of laughter, some of them falling out of their compartments and having to climb back up. Paloe groaned and rested her forehead in one hand.  
  
The kids continued the story, one voice after the other pouring out the ideas.  
  
"He was so short, he couldn't even touch the Tallests' FEET even if he jumped!"  
  
"He wasn't just short, he was stupid!"  
  
"He was so stupid, he couldn't do anything right!"  
  
"And he was an invader!"  
  
That brought an immediate cease to the laughter. Twenty-nine pairs of confused eyes blinked down at Zim, who was grinning.  
  
"He was an invader!" Zim continued, clapping his hands together in delight. "He was the best invader on Irk!"  
  
More silence.  
  
"But if he's short and stupid, why is he an invader?" a little girl asked.  
  
Zim thought about that, rubbing his chin and narrowing his shiny eyes. "Because ... because ... he wasn't really short and stupid..."  
  
"If he's short, everyone would know," the same girl contested with a smug smile.  
  
"Okay, so, he's short," Zim conceded. "But I bet he's not stupid. In fact, I bet the Tallests would give him a REALLY important mission to go on!"  
  
A zany little boy in one corner suddenly convulsed with giggles, yelling "But he messed up bad coz when he went on the mission he was SO short, and SO stupid, he setted everything on fire!"  
  
Everyone laughed except Zim, whose face fell. Leaping out of his compartment, Zim placed spindly hands on slight hips and glared at the boy in defiance. "Even if he DID setted everything on fire, he'd put them out again!"  
  
"Nah, he'd just make them worse!" someone crowed. The whole room was in hysterics save Zim, who looked at Paloe imploringly.  
  
The Irken woman picked Zim up and practically threw him back in his cubicle. "Look, we need to hurry this along. So, the short and stupid Irken was an invader who went on a mission and screwed it up. Let's just say that the Tallests banished him somewhere as punishment. Uh-huh. Is that the end?"  
  
"No it's not the end!" cried Zim, utterly aghast. "He'd quit being banished, and get the Tallests to give him ANOTHER mission, so he can make up for the first one!"  
  
"That's just dumb," a boy whined. "The Tallests wouldn't do that."  
  
"Clever lad!" approved Paloe, patting the pertinent smeet on his lime-coloured head. "You're absolutely right. Our most mighty and virtuous Tallests would never reward reckless behaviour! Conversely, they punish it!"  
  
The smug little girl who had argued with Zim earlier closed her purple eyes and turned on an annoying righteous tone. "Yep, they'd send the short and stupid Irken to a horrible place far, far away where he can suffer bad, and no-one would ever see him again! Like the first time he got banished, but this time it'd be so far away, he couldn't quit being banished like last time!"  
  
"Ah, that's called exile," Paloe said with a serious nod. "Indeed, I believe that's what would happen."   
  
Indignant, Zim hopped out of his cubicle again and struck a defensive pose. "They would NOT give an exile! They'd give a MISSION!"  
  
The snotty girl looked down with a fierce frown. "Exile!"  
  
"Mission!"  
  
"Exile!"  
  
"Mission!"  
  
"Come on, Zim!" a fat male smeet chirped. "You're the only one who believes it's a mission."  
  
"SO?"  
  
Paloe scooped Zim up and once again tossed him in his compartment. "Okay, so, the short and stupid Irken gets a mission, screws it up, gets banished, and er, quits ... and as a result is exiled to a far away place. And everyone lived happily ever after. The end. Now, all of you lie on your stomachs! We've wasted enough time."  
  
The smeets moaned and complained, but this time they did roll over. Paloe went to the controls and activated the main switch. She then went from compartment to compartment, hitting individual switches. In each case, a snake-like pipe came down from the roof of the cubicle and attached firmly to the smeet's pak. As the nutrients flowed in, the smeets seemed to fall asleep. Working her way around hitting switches, Paloe was relieved to finally hear nothing but gentle breathing.  
  
Zim was the last one she came to. Lying on his stomach, Zim peered up at her with his ruby eyes, looking depressed.   
  
"I didn't like that story," he whimpered. "Why wouldn't he get another mission?"  
  
"Because it's illogical, Zim. Be quiet now."  
  
Zim closed his eyes. "I still think it'd be a mission."  
  
"Maybe to YOUR mind, Zim." Paloe touched the switch on Zim's compartment, and the whole room was silent at last.  
  
THE END  
  
*** 


End file.
